Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
‘I have heard the heartbeat of the universe. I know the answers to many questions. Ask me.’
The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning. That was the only thing he currently knew for sure.
‘Er…what does master want for breakfast?’ he said.
Wen looked down in their camp and across the snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘One of the difficult ones.’ (TOT)
For something to exist, it has to be observed.
For something to exist, it has to have a position in time and space.
And this explains why nine-tenths of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for.
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the rest of it, and you cannot see the back of your own head.
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is paperwork. (TOT)
... perhaps everyone need a tiny part of themselves that can, metaphorically, be allowed to run naked in the rain*, to think the unthinkable thoughts, to hide in corners and spy on the world, to do the forbidden but enjoyable deeds.
* Quite an overrated activity. (TOT)
They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.
And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot. (TOT)
An edge witch is one who makes her living on the edges, in that moment when the boundary conditions apply – between life and death, light and dark, good and evil and, most dangerously of all, today and tomorrow. (TOT)
‘‘scuse me,’ said the raven, ‘but how come Miss Ogg became Mrs Ogg? Sounds like a bit of a rural arrangement, if you catch my meaning.’
WITCHES ARE MATRILINEAL, said Death. THEY FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO CHANGE MEN THAN TO CHANGE NAMES. (TOT)
He got up and went back to the mirror. There was not a lot of time. Things in the mirror were closer than they appeared. (TOT)
He wished he liked people more, but somehow he could never get on with them. He never knew what to say. If life was a party, he wasn’t even in the kitchen. He envied the people who made it as far as the kitchen. (TOT)
Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be An Interesting Person and then see whether there were any courses available. He was puzzled that people seemed to think he was a boring conversationalist. Why, he could talk about all kinds of clocks. Mechanical clocks, magical clocks, sand clocks, cuckoo clocks, the rare Hershebian beetle clocks…But for some reason he always ran out of listeners before he ran out of clocks. (TOT)
Contrary to the headmistress’s instructions, Miss Susan did not let the children do what they liked. She let them do what she liked. It turned out to be a lot more interesting for everyone. (TOT)
‘Questions don’t have to make sense, Vincent,’ said Miss Susan. ‘But answers do.’ (TOT)
‘…as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to “Because”.’ (TOT)
Silver stars weren’t awarded frequently and gold stars happened less than once a fortnight, and were vied for accordingly. Right now Miss Susan selected a silver star. Pretty soon Vincent the Keen would have a galaxy of his very own. To give him his due he was quite uninterested in which kind of star he got. Quantity, that was what he liked. Miss Susan privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely to Be Killed One Day By His Wife. (TOT)
‘Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.’ (TOT)
There are the Brothers of Cool, a reserved and secretive sect which believes that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended, and that black works with everything, and that chrome will never truly go out of style. (TOT)
There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon, although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup. (TOT)
‘He never pays attention, he always knows the answers, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can’t keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There’s no educating a smart boy.’ (TOT)
…it is possible, after a while, to develop certain dangerous habits of thought. One is that, while all important enterprises need careful organization, it is the organization that needs organizing, rather than the enterprise. And the other is that tranquility is always a good thing. (TOT)
‘Face the man you have challenged, or give up the belt.’
The figure remained very still for a moment, and then cautiously, in a manner almost theatrically designed not to give offence, started to fumble with his belt.
‘No, no, we don’t need that,’ said Lu-Tze kindly. ‘It was a good challenge. A decent “Ai!” and a very passable “Hai-eee!”, I thought. Good martial gibberish all round, such as you don’t often hear these days. And we would not want his trousers falling down at a time like this, would we?’ He sniffed and added, ‘Especially at a time like this.’ (TOT)
Dojo! What is Rule One?’
Even the cowering challenger mumbled along to the chorus:
‘Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!’ (TOT)
‘We’re the most secret society you can imagine.’
‘Really? Who are you, then?’
‘The Monks of History.’
‘Huh? I’ve never heard of you!’
‘See? That’s how good we are.’ (TOT)
‘Ah,’ said Clodpool, with an expression that he thought made him look wise, although in reality it made him look like someone remembering a painful bowel movement. (TOT)
…Madam Frout wasn’t very good at discipline, which was possibly why she’d invented the Method, which didn’t require any. She generally relied on talking to people in a jolly tone of voice until they gave in out of sheer embarrassment on her behalf. (TOT)
If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism. (TOT)
Some distance away from Madam Frout’s Academy, in Estoric Street, were a number of gentlemen’s clubs. It would be far too cynical to say that here the term ‘gentleman’ was simply defined as ‘someone who can afford five hundred dollars a year’; they also had to be approved of by a great many other gentlemen who could afford the same fee. (TOT)
At his club a gentleman could find the kind of food he’d got used to at school, like spotted dick, jam roly-poly and the perennial favourite, stodge and custard. Vitamins are eaten by wives. (TOT)
She could see things that were really there*…
*Which is much harder than seeing things that aren’t there. Everyone does that. (TOT)
It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades. (TOT)
‘No one would be that stu-’
Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World-Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry. (TOT)
Susan did an unusual thing, and listened. That’s not an easy task for a teacher. (TOT)
He was a man who tried to see the best in everybody, but the city had got rather complicated since he was a boy, with dwarfs and trolls and golems and even zombies. He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was ‘cultural’, apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. ‘Cultural’ sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there. (TOT)
Insanity depended on your point of view, he always said, and if it was the view through your own underpants then everything looked fine. (TOT)
…young Master Jeremy was beginning to worry him. He never laughed, and Igor liked a good maniacal laugh. You could trust it. (TOT)
‘Algebra?’ said Madam Frout, perforce staring at her own bosom, which no one else had ever done. ‘But that’s far too difficult for seven-year-olds!’
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell them that and so far they haven’t found out,’ said Susan. (TOT)
…there are things even a voice of eldritch command can’t achieve and one of them is to get extra money out of a head teacher… (TOT)
There was something pleasant about an empty classroom. Of course, as any teacher would point out, one nice thing was that there were no children in it… (TOT)
This is true. A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same branch of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking contains no calories. (TOT)
Honestly, thought Susan, once you learn the arts of defending the Stationery Cupboard, outwitting Jason and keeping the class pet alive until the end of term, you’ve mastered at least half of teaching. (TOT)
‘The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,’ said Lu-Tze. (TOT)
‘Do you know okidoki?’
‘Just a lot of bunny-hops.’
‘Shiitake?’
‘If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside.’
‘Upsidazi?’
‘A waste of good bricks.’
‘No kando?’
You made that one up.’
‘Tung-pi?’
‘Bad-tempered flower-arranging.’ (TOT)
‘When in doubt, choose to live.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze bent down, picked up a fallen cork helmet, and solemnly handed it to Lobsang.
‘Health and safety at work,’ he said. Very important.’
‘Will it protect me?’ said Lobsang, putting it on.
‘Not really. But when they find your head, it may be recognizable.’ (TOT)
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS STAYS HAPPENED.
‘What kind of philosophy is that?’
THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS. (TOT)
‘I know all about practising procedures for emergencies,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘And there’s always something missing.’
‘Ridiculous! We take great pains-’
‘You always leave out the emergency.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze Sighed. ‘Y’know, most of what you get taught is lies. It has to be. Sometimes if you get the truth all at once, you can’t understand it.’ (TOT)
‘Some people just become stupid with more authority.’ (TOT)
When it came to getting weird things done, sane beat mad hands down. (TOT)
And then there was Lady LeJean. She gave Igor the willies, and he was a man not usually subject to even the smallest willy. (TOT)
You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Even her grandfather had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them the up the evolutionary ladder. (TOT)
Around her, historians climbed library ladders, fumbled books onto their lecterns and generally rebuilt the image of the past to suit the eyesight of today. (TOT)
Bodies were a major human weakness. (TOT)
Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic amateur who’d never looked at a real sunset. (TOT)
Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as ‘Oh-oh’ possibly combine the maximum bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of breath. (TOT)
Some people faded into the background. Miss Susan faded into the foreground. She stood out. Everything she stood in front of became nothing more than background. (TOT)
‘What did you say?’
‘I said it’s uncertain death.’
‘Is that worse than certain death.’
‘Much.’ (TOT)
‘You know the secret wisdoms that everyone seeks, monk.’ The bottle-washer paused. ‘No, I even suspect that you know the explicit wisdoms, the ones hidden in plain view, which practically no one looks for.’ (TOT)
‘The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he awoke and said, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?”’ said Lobsang, trying to join in.
‘Really?’ said Susan briskly. ‘And which was he?’
‘What? Well…who knows?’
‘How did he write his poems?’ said Susan.
‘With a brush, of course.’
‘He didn’t flap around making information-rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?’
‘No one ever mentioned it.’
‘Then he was probably a man,’ said Susan. (TOT)
‘…they’re finding out what being human really means.’
‘Which is?’
‘That you’re not as much in control as you think.’ (TOT)
‘Who are you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to…fairytales and monsters, and there’s a schoolteacher walking around?’
‘Best kind of person to have,’ said Susan. ‘We don’t like silliness. Anyway, I told you, I’ve inherited certain talents.’
‘Like living outside time?’
‘That’s one of them.’
‘It’s a weird talent for a schoolteacher!’
‘Good for marking, though,’ said Susan calmly. (TOT)
Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football. (TOT)
Knowing how to use other people's vanity was a martial art all in itself... (TOT)
A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed the Glorious Memorial to the People’s Industry. (TOT)
…the common people of the city had a keen eye for works like Caravati’s Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze or Mauvaise’s Man with Big Figleaf… (TOT)
'I was one of them,' said Lady LeJean. 'Now I rather think I'm one of me.' (TOT)
'... there is so much context to being human, I am afraid.' (TOT)
'Part of us thinks all kinds of things...' (TOT)
‘Seeing things a human shouldn’t have to see makes us human.’ (TOT)
'You had to live in the world. Otherwise, how could you learn to be human?' (TOT)
'... it'd all gone myffic.'
'Mythic?' said schoolteacher Susan.
'Yep. With extra myff. And you can get into big trouble with myffic.' (TOT)
'... sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail...' (TOT)
'... them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those we ain't shiny won't shine however much you buff 'em.' (TOT)
Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and – this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit – it didn’t even make you right. But it did make you definite… (TOT)
‘You don’t look insane,’ lied Susan. ‘As such.’
‘Thank you. But sanity is defined by the majority, I am afraid.’ (TOT)
‘…humans get such interesting diseases. I’d rather like to see how weasles turns out, too.’ One crusted eye winked at Death.
‘You mean measles?’ said the angel.
‘Weasles, I’m afraid,’ said Pestilence. ‘People are getting really careless with this bio-artificing. We’re talking boils that really bite.’ (TOT)
There are different kinds of rules. From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask… (TOT)
‘…I believe nougat is a terrible thing to cover with chocolate, where it can ambush the unsuspecting.’ (TOT)
IN ORDER TO HAVE A CHANGE OF FORTUNE AT THE LAST MINUTE YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR FORTUNE TO THE LAST MINUTE ... (TOT)
‘It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.’
‘Oh, there is,’ said Susan. ‘Delusion, wishful thinking and gullibility.’ (TOT)
‘…because in this world, after everyone panics, there’s always got to be someone to tip the wee out of the shoe.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze, when they found him, was looking calmly up at an enormous mammoth. Under its huge hairy brow its eyes were squinting with the effort both of seeing him and of getting all three of its brain cells lines up so that it could decide whether to trample on him or gouge him out of the frost-bound landscape. One brain cell was saying ‘gouge’, one was going for ‘trample’ but the third had wandered off and was thinking about as much sex as possible. (TOT)
Who knew where humanity began and where it finished? (TOT)
'Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblance to the truth of the matter in any way at all. But it is a lie that you can ... understand, I think.' (TOT)
Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a time of voice means 'Stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.' (TOT)
‘There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,’ said Unity sadly. (TOT)
... people never see anyone who wants them to give them money. (TOT)
Everyone has an unconditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like 'except when I really need to' or 'unless no one is looking' or, indeed, 'unless the first on was nougat.' (TOT)
‘In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box,’ said Lu-Tze. (TOT)
Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment. (TOT)
The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning. That was the only thing he currently knew for sure.
‘Er…what does master want for breakfast?’ he said.
Wen looked down in their camp and across the snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘One of the difficult ones.’ (TOT)
For something to exist, it has to be observed.
For something to exist, it has to have a position in time and space.
And this explains why nine-tenths of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for.
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the rest of it, and you cannot see the back of your own head.
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is paperwork. (TOT)
... perhaps everyone need a tiny part of themselves that can, metaphorically, be allowed to run naked in the rain*, to think the unthinkable thoughts, to hide in corners and spy on the world, to do the forbidden but enjoyable deeds.
* Quite an overrated activity. (TOT)
They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.
And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot. (TOT)
An edge witch is one who makes her living on the edges, in that moment when the boundary conditions apply – between life and death, light and dark, good and evil and, most dangerously of all, today and tomorrow. (TOT)
‘‘scuse me,’ said the raven, ‘but how come Miss Ogg became Mrs Ogg? Sounds like a bit of a rural arrangement, if you catch my meaning.’
WITCHES ARE MATRILINEAL, said Death. THEY FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO CHANGE MEN THAN TO CHANGE NAMES. (TOT)
He got up and went back to the mirror. There was not a lot of time. Things in the mirror were closer than they appeared. (TOT)
He wished he liked people more, but somehow he could never get on with them. He never knew what to say. If life was a party, he wasn’t even in the kitchen. He envied the people who made it as far as the kitchen. (TOT)
Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be An Interesting Person and then see whether there were any courses available. He was puzzled that people seemed to think he was a boring conversationalist. Why, he could talk about all kinds of clocks. Mechanical clocks, magical clocks, sand clocks, cuckoo clocks, the rare Hershebian beetle clocks…But for some reason he always ran out of listeners before he ran out of clocks. (TOT)
Contrary to the headmistress’s instructions, Miss Susan did not let the children do what they liked. She let them do what she liked. It turned out to be a lot more interesting for everyone. (TOT)
‘Questions don’t have to make sense, Vincent,’ said Miss Susan. ‘But answers do.’ (TOT)
‘…as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to “Because”.’ (TOT)
Silver stars weren’t awarded frequently and gold stars happened less than once a fortnight, and were vied for accordingly. Right now Miss Susan selected a silver star. Pretty soon Vincent the Keen would have a galaxy of his very own. To give him his due he was quite uninterested in which kind of star he got. Quantity, that was what he liked. Miss Susan privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely to Be Killed One Day By His Wife. (TOT)
‘Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.’ (TOT)
There are the Brothers of Cool, a reserved and secretive sect which believes that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended, and that black works with everything, and that chrome will never truly go out of style. (TOT)
There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon, although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup. (TOT)
‘He never pays attention, he always knows the answers, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can’t keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There’s no educating a smart boy.’ (TOT)
…it is possible, after a while, to develop certain dangerous habits of thought. One is that, while all important enterprises need careful organization, it is the organization that needs organizing, rather than the enterprise. And the other is that tranquility is always a good thing. (TOT)
‘Face the man you have challenged, or give up the belt.’
The figure remained very still for a moment, and then cautiously, in a manner almost theatrically designed not to give offence, started to fumble with his belt.
‘No, no, we don’t need that,’ said Lu-Tze kindly. ‘It was a good challenge. A decent “Ai!” and a very passable “Hai-eee!”, I thought. Good martial gibberish all round, such as you don’t often hear these days. And we would not want his trousers falling down at a time like this, would we?’ He sniffed and added, ‘Especially at a time like this.’ (TOT)
Dojo! What is Rule One?’
Even the cowering challenger mumbled along to the chorus:
‘Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!’ (TOT)
‘We’re the most secret society you can imagine.’
‘Really? Who are you, then?’
‘The Monks of History.’
‘Huh? I’ve never heard of you!’
‘See? That’s how good we are.’ (TOT)
‘Ah,’ said Clodpool, with an expression that he thought made him look wise, although in reality it made him look like someone remembering a painful bowel movement. (TOT)
…Madam Frout wasn’t very good at discipline, which was possibly why she’d invented the Method, which didn’t require any. She generally relied on talking to people in a jolly tone of voice until they gave in out of sheer embarrassment on her behalf. (TOT)
If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism. (TOT)
Some distance away from Madam Frout’s Academy, in Estoric Street, were a number of gentlemen’s clubs. It would be far too cynical to say that here the term ‘gentleman’ was simply defined as ‘someone who can afford five hundred dollars a year’; they also had to be approved of by a great many other gentlemen who could afford the same fee. (TOT)
At his club a gentleman could find the kind of food he’d got used to at school, like spotted dick, jam roly-poly and the perennial favourite, stodge and custard. Vitamins are eaten by wives. (TOT)
She could see things that were really there*…
*Which is much harder than seeing things that aren’t there. Everyone does that. (TOT)
It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades. (TOT)
‘No one would be that stu-’
Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World-Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry. (TOT)
Susan did an unusual thing, and listened. That’s not an easy task for a teacher. (TOT)
He was a man who tried to see the best in everybody, but the city had got rather complicated since he was a boy, with dwarfs and trolls and golems and even zombies. He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was ‘cultural’, apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. ‘Cultural’ sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there. (TOT)
Insanity depended on your point of view, he always said, and if it was the view through your own underpants then everything looked fine. (TOT)
…young Master Jeremy was beginning to worry him. He never laughed, and Igor liked a good maniacal laugh. You could trust it. (TOT)
‘Algebra?’ said Madam Frout, perforce staring at her own bosom, which no one else had ever done. ‘But that’s far too difficult for seven-year-olds!’
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell them that and so far they haven’t found out,’ said Susan. (TOT)
…there are things even a voice of eldritch command can’t achieve and one of them is to get extra money out of a head teacher… (TOT)
There was something pleasant about an empty classroom. Of course, as any teacher would point out, one nice thing was that there were no children in it… (TOT)
This is true. A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same branch of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking contains no calories. (TOT)
Honestly, thought Susan, once you learn the arts of defending the Stationery Cupboard, outwitting Jason and keeping the class pet alive until the end of term, you’ve mastered at least half of teaching. (TOT)
‘The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,’ said Lu-Tze. (TOT)
‘Do you know okidoki?’
‘Just a lot of bunny-hops.’
‘Shiitake?’
‘If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside.’
‘Upsidazi?’
‘A waste of good bricks.’
‘No kando?’
You made that one up.’
‘Tung-pi?’
‘Bad-tempered flower-arranging.’ (TOT)
‘When in doubt, choose to live.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze bent down, picked up a fallen cork helmet, and solemnly handed it to Lobsang.
‘Health and safety at work,’ he said. Very important.’
‘Will it protect me?’ said Lobsang, putting it on.
‘Not really. But when they find your head, it may be recognizable.’ (TOT)
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS STAYS HAPPENED.
‘What kind of philosophy is that?’
THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS. (TOT)
‘I know all about practising procedures for emergencies,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘And there’s always something missing.’
‘Ridiculous! We take great pains-’
‘You always leave out the emergency.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze Sighed. ‘Y’know, most of what you get taught is lies. It has to be. Sometimes if you get the truth all at once, you can’t understand it.’ (TOT)
‘Some people just become stupid with more authority.’ (TOT)
When it came to getting weird things done, sane beat mad hands down. (TOT)
And then there was Lady LeJean. She gave Igor the willies, and he was a man not usually subject to even the smallest willy. (TOT)
You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Even her grandfather had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them the up the evolutionary ladder. (TOT)
Around her, historians climbed library ladders, fumbled books onto their lecterns and generally rebuilt the image of the past to suit the eyesight of today. (TOT)
Bodies were a major human weakness. (TOT)
Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic amateur who’d never looked at a real sunset. (TOT)
Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as ‘Oh-oh’ possibly combine the maximum bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of breath. (TOT)
Some people faded into the background. Miss Susan faded into the foreground. She stood out. Everything she stood in front of became nothing more than background. (TOT)
‘What did you say?’
‘I said it’s uncertain death.’
‘Is that worse than certain death.’
‘Much.’ (TOT)
‘You know the secret wisdoms that everyone seeks, monk.’ The bottle-washer paused. ‘No, I even suspect that you know the explicit wisdoms, the ones hidden in plain view, which practically no one looks for.’ (TOT)
‘The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he awoke and said, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?”’ said Lobsang, trying to join in.
‘Really?’ said Susan briskly. ‘And which was he?’
‘What? Well…who knows?’
‘How did he write his poems?’ said Susan.
‘With a brush, of course.’
‘He didn’t flap around making information-rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?’
‘No one ever mentioned it.’
‘Then he was probably a man,’ said Susan. (TOT)
‘…they’re finding out what being human really means.’
‘Which is?’
‘That you’re not as much in control as you think.’ (TOT)
‘Who are you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to…fairytales and monsters, and there’s a schoolteacher walking around?’
‘Best kind of person to have,’ said Susan. ‘We don’t like silliness. Anyway, I told you, I’ve inherited certain talents.’
‘Like living outside time?’
‘That’s one of them.’
‘It’s a weird talent for a schoolteacher!’
‘Good for marking, though,’ said Susan calmly. (TOT)
Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football. (TOT)
Knowing how to use other people's vanity was a martial art all in itself... (TOT)
A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed the Glorious Memorial to the People’s Industry. (TOT)
…the common people of the city had a keen eye for works like Caravati’s Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze or Mauvaise’s Man with Big Figleaf… (TOT)
'I was one of them,' said Lady LeJean. 'Now I rather think I'm one of me.' (TOT)
'... there is so much context to being human, I am afraid.' (TOT)
'Part of us thinks all kinds of things...' (TOT)
‘Seeing things a human shouldn’t have to see makes us human.’ (TOT)
'You had to live in the world. Otherwise, how could you learn to be human?' (TOT)
'... it'd all gone myffic.'
'Mythic?' said schoolteacher Susan.
'Yep. With extra myff. And you can get into big trouble with myffic.' (TOT)
'... sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail...' (TOT)
'... them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those we ain't shiny won't shine however much you buff 'em.' (TOT)
Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and – this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit – it didn’t even make you right. But it did make you definite… (TOT)
‘You don’t look insane,’ lied Susan. ‘As such.’
‘Thank you. But sanity is defined by the majority, I am afraid.’ (TOT)
‘…humans get such interesting diseases. I’d rather like to see how weasles turns out, too.’ One crusted eye winked at Death.
‘You mean measles?’ said the angel.
‘Weasles, I’m afraid,’ said Pestilence. ‘People are getting really careless with this bio-artificing. We’re talking boils that really bite.’ (TOT)
There are different kinds of rules. From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask… (TOT)
‘…I believe nougat is a terrible thing to cover with chocolate, where it can ambush the unsuspecting.’ (TOT)
IN ORDER TO HAVE A CHANGE OF FORTUNE AT THE LAST MINUTE YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR FORTUNE TO THE LAST MINUTE ... (TOT)
‘It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.’
‘Oh, there is,’ said Susan. ‘Delusion, wishful thinking and gullibility.’ (TOT)
‘…because in this world, after everyone panics, there’s always got to be someone to tip the wee out of the shoe.’ (TOT)
Lu-Tze, when they found him, was looking calmly up at an enormous mammoth. Under its huge hairy brow its eyes were squinting with the effort both of seeing him and of getting all three of its brain cells lines up so that it could decide whether to trample on him or gouge him out of the frost-bound landscape. One brain cell was saying ‘gouge’, one was going for ‘trample’ but the third had wandered off and was thinking about as much sex as possible. (TOT)
Who knew where humanity began and where it finished? (TOT)
'Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblance to the truth of the matter in any way at all. But it is a lie that you can ... understand, I think.' (TOT)
Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a time of voice means 'Stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.' (TOT)
‘There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,’ said Unity sadly. (TOT)
... people never see anyone who wants them to give them money. (TOT)
Everyone has an unconditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like 'except when I really need to' or 'unless no one is looking' or, indeed, 'unless the first on was nougat.' (TOT)
‘In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box,’ said Lu-Tze. (TOT)
Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment. (TOT)
